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OPINION

The odds are against women when reporting sexual assault

Nancy Kaffer, Detroit Free Press
Published 2:54 p.m. CT Oct. 4, 2018

CLOSE

Nearly half of Americans believe that Christine Blasley Ford was telling the truth last week after the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, according to a Marist College poll.

Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 27.(Photo: ~File photo)

Whether a woman has reported a rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment is assumed in some quarters to be a measure of sincerity and severity: If it really happened, if it was that bad, why wouldn't she report?

That's the question we hear again and again. That's the question many people used to undermine the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her more than three decades ago, when she was 15 and he was 17.

But this is the question every one of us should ask: Why should women report?

Why should you report if no one believes you? If the result of reporting is further upheaval of your life, risk to your safety, your relationships, your career? And what if the outcome of that effort, that risk is ... nothing?

That's what two women, both saying they are survivors of sexual assault, asked Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., on Friday, cornering him in an elevator minutes before a Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate floor. And maybe it mattered to Flake. He voted with his fellow Republicans to advance the nomination, but only after making clear he would withhold his crucial floor vote until the FBI met Ford's request that it investigate her claims.

Cases of rape and sexual assault are some of the most difficult to prove, says Kimberly Hurst, executive director and founder of Wayne County SAFE. SAFE works with survivors of rape and sexual assault in Wayne County, Michigan, collects rape kit evidence, and offers counseling and advocacy.

Fifty-seven reports out of of 1,000 lead to an arrest, according to RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). Eleven of those arrests are referred to prosecutors. Seven lead to a felony conviction. Six result in incarceration.

All of which makes it pretty easy to understand why just 310 out of 1,000 rapes and sexual assaults are reported.

"That is the uncertainty, and that is one of the reasons that we’re always very, very mindful about what comes out of our mouths," Hurst says. "We tell our patients, there is no promise that if you sign off for this (sexual assault) kit ... this guy is going to be convicted, and he’s going to go to jail for a long time. We make no promises."

Those who do report face a burden rarely placed on victims of any other crime: Proving that it happened.

Someone whose car has been stolen, or whose home has been robbed, might not ever get justice. Police might not find the perpetrator. Prosecutors might not win a conviction. But no one denies that a crime has been committed.

For victims of sexual assault, it's different. Investigations take a long time, can be invasive, and center on the credibility of the accuser as much as the accused — whether a rape, in fact, occurred.

Explaining all of that can have a quelling effect: "When you lay out expectations for what happens next, who in the hell would want to participate?" Hurst says.

Belief, she says, matters.

"Whoever a survivor discloses to first, if the survivor is believed and supported, it reduces the level of PTSD, level of trauma, and helps the ability to heal," Hurst says. "Research is showing that’s the key thing that helps. When survivors feel believed, they're more likely to engage in the criminal justice system, and when survivors engage, more cases go to court, and we're more likely to hold more perpetrators accountable."

There was nothing ambiguous about what happened to Sam.

Sam was abducted in broad daylight, by two men who raped her for hours. (Sam is not her real name; the Detroit Free Press does not identify victims of sexual assault.) She didn't know the men. She wasn't at a party. She wasn't drunk or high.

Sam didn't have to decide whether to report: She was on the phone with a friend when the men abducted her, and that friend immediately called the police. When the men let her go, hours later, police were at the scene. Within weeks, the men who raped her had been caught. Both ultimately pleaded guilty, and each was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

It is, she says, the best possible outcome. But getting there required her to submit to collection of physical evidence from her body, to explain at a preliminary examination what the men had done to her, as one of them sat across from her, staring at her crotch. All without guarantee that any of it would help her heal or make her safer.

And so, at first, she lied.

"I lied about minor details, because I was scared. I was scared the police wouldn’t catch them, or they would, but they'd get like a year and they’d come back and find me," Sam said. "So I lied about details like color of their vehicle or the ages of the men. Hours and hours later I was in the hospital ... I told a friend I had lied. He said, 'You need to tell the truth.' So we called the police back in and I told the truth."

Sam testified more than once, because the men were accused of multiple crimes.

"It was very draining. It was like being sick every day. I was tired and I couldn’t understand why. I had a lot of anxiety every day I had to go in there and do it, sitting in a courtroom telling people exactly what happened, staring at them, giving a play by play," she said.

Because her attackers were sent to prison for a long time, it was worth it, Sam said. She feels safer, and knows that other women are safer, because of what she endured.

If they hadn't been?

"No, definitely not," she said.

Women are talking about it, Hurst says, like never before.

"It’s opening up opportunities for dialogue," she says. But some of the response "says to me we have a lot of work to do here. When we flip it, instead of victim blaming, it’s victim-centered. We’re starting to get it, but we’re absolutely not there yet."

So many movies, Sam said, show a young woman or girl accusing a man of rape or sexual assault. The man's life is almost destroyed, but at the end he prevails: The girl was lying, part of a scheme to bring a good man down.

"We all are programmed to believe these young girls are lying," Sam said.

For more women to report, we have to show them why it is worthwhile. We have to show them that their perpetrators will be held accountable.

That we believe them.

Nancy Kaffer is a columnist at the Detroit Free Press, where this column first appeared.